


Slow, Cinnamon Summer

by bunnypirate (evil_bunny_king), evil_bunny_king



Series: Salt Water [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: And find ourselves along the way, And was unrequited, But it's the smallest of small references, Claudeleth ride or die always, Established Relationship, F/M, Faerghus is cold, Fluff, Past Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Post-Game, We live and we love and we love again, With a sprinkling of spice, as a treat, bed (and Claude) are warm, names names what's in a name, sleepy mornings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/bunnypirate, https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king
Summary: She presses a cold hand against the broad warmth of his chest and he hisses and then laughs, his hold tightening around her.“As,” he says wryly, “expected.""My dear. Byleth.” He folds her hand to his chest, safely secured. “For a goddess, your hands are very, very cold.”
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: Salt Water [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747756
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51
Collections: The Golden Gifts - Claudeleth Fic/Art Exchange





	Slow, Cinnamon Summer

**Author's Note:**

> For Corrin / naturesass. Merry Christmas...
> 
> Farsi translations not provided in text are at the end.

“Claude.”

“Mmm.”

He’s slow and sleepy in the morning, his dark hair curled over her pillows. Sunlight diffuses through the curtains of her room, soft but unyieldingly bright - the same rooms she’s refused to relinquish, because even after all these years they are still _hers_ and she will be as stubborn as an _ox_ when she needs to be. Intractable, Claude had told her once, smiling and laughing at his own hypocrisy (they both are, beyond a fault). 

And the rooms haven’t changed, not really. There is the same raw wood furniture, functional, clean. The same landlord, greeting them the day before over his books and accounts - his hair more spare, perhaps, and with new wrinkles in his weathered, drawn face, but still, the same. The thin, faerghus mouth. The heavy brow, lowered over a bright, keen gaze that held her own as he returned her nod of greeting and then turned to her companion, well-wrapped for travelling and decidedly anonymous as the two of them had agreed to be.

Claude had borne the scrutiny with his usual smile, his gloved fingers interlocked with her own and tapping an offbeat rhythm against the back of her hand. When old Elias had nodded his satisfaction and went to fetch the the keys she’d bequeathed to his safe keeping five years ago, Claude squeezed their joint grip, warm, comforting.

 _Give us two hours to reopen the rooms,_ is all Elias had said when he’d returned, pressing the keys into her hand. _Then all will be ready for you._ And with that he’d left again, leaving them in their expanding puddle of snowmelt in the entrance hall.

 _I know a place_ , she’d said, stirring as if from a dream - and it had almost felt like one, felt like one of the murky memories of her childhood, the years between that she’d drifted back into this hall; half-a-head shorter, maybe, armed and unarmed, trailing after her father like a wraith. They’d spend the occasional autumn here, and the winter, if they couldn’t avoid it. It had been one of the closest places to a home she’d known, a static point in a blur of places, names. She’d remember seeing a crib before her father had chopped it into pieces for firewood one lean year-

A hand on her arm, Claude’s, drawing her from the memory. The dip of his head, his green eyes flicking between hers, searching, and as she refocuses, he smiles.

 _You mentioned you knew a place_ , he’d said, gently taking her hand and tucking it in the crook of his arm. He’d closed his other gloved hand over it, warm and holding. Grounding. She’d settled back into this time, this place, and smiled back.

 _Yes_.

Now, the room she’d once shared with her father, she shares with Claude.

They’re resting from their journey through the throat ( _the wyvern’s back_ , Claude had murmured into her ear in almyran, smiling as she’d repeated it under her breath) - the brief spate of peace they’d wrangled themselves, before they needed to submit themselves to the formalities of the Faerghus court.

Claude is warm beside her, despite the draft that has worked its way through the window panes. He’s wrapped himself to his chin in the blanket, burrowed to escape the morning, and he mumbles in almyran or fodlan when she calls to him, turning from the light.

“Claude,” she tries again, shuffling lower down the mattress. She works her hands into the warm mass, hunting for his grip on the blanket and he makes another low sound in his throat, distinctly displeased.

She stops and drops her head to the pillow, letting out an amused breath. "Khalid.”

A muffled noise. The grip on the blankets maybe loosens, a little.

Leaning forward she tries again, whispering in almyran this time, taking her time to form the increasingly familiar sounds in her mouth: “ _Khalid. Jāné del-am._ ” (The life of my heart) _._ He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but there’s a smile dancing over his lips, curving the corners of his mouth. “ _Nooré cheshm-am_.” (The light of my eyes). She reaches up to brush his sleep-tousled hair back from his forehead, smiling as he blinks at the contact. “Wake up.”

She traces the line of his nose next with her icy fingertips and he wrinkles the bridge against it, and then sighs, a warm breath against her wrist. And then he finally opens his eyes, blinking against the light. 

"Cheating," he mumbles in almyran, squinting at her - but there’s laughter there, there’s a smile, and she reaches down to press her thumb to the corner of it, following the curve of his cheek. There’s a line pressed too, left by his coveted blanket. His skin is soft, sleep-warm, glowing and golden in the sunlight.

He makes another noise, softly, and when she looks back up he is watching her, his eyes so very green.

"I could do worse,” she says, because she could.

He does smile this time, slowly. It reminds her of his breaking dawn; the dream he shared with her on nights as close as this, as quiet as this, whispers and murmurs and kisses in the dark.

“You could,” he agrees. “But you wouldn't.”

No. “I wouldn't.”

He blinks at her, still smiling, and then unearths his arm from the blankets, lifting the covers in invitation. The morning chill slips in, drawing a shiver from him, the dark hairs on his arms rising, and after a moment - too long, she realises, when he clicks his tongue - he leans forward to curl the blanket around her, gently pulling her against him. She goes, easily, easily. He settles them back into the nest of blankets and pillows and sighs.

She experimentally presses a cold hand against the broad warmth of his chest and he hisses and then laughs, his hold tightening around her.

“As,” he says wryly, “expected.” He reaches for her hand, pulling it gently into his own and pressing kisses to the rough skin of her knuckles, the lines of her fingers. “My dear. Byleth.” He folds her hand to his chest, safely secured. “For a goddess, your hands are very, very cold.”

She snuggles closer, tucking herself beneath his chin, her free hand skating around to press against the broad warmth of his back and he arches with another hiss and a bark of a laugh.

“I'm not a goddess," she murmurs as they settle, Claude’s arm wrapped around her, and he hums beneath her ear.

"Are you not?"

"...Not exactly.” She mumbles into his nightshirt, turned into that space of skin beneath his collarbone where his shirt has dipped. She likes it here - this warm stretch of skin, the hollow of his throat. His heart beats steady and strong beneath her ear and she moves with each of his breaths, rising and falling. Her own heart beats off tempo, slowly. “Not exactly a goddess."

She feels him shift beneath her and he hugs her closer, deliciously warm. "Better.”

“You disagree?”

He makes a thoughtful noise. “Not _exactly._ ” He’s parroting her, but she’s too comfortable to care. “You’ve lived more lives than most.”

She has. She has lived her life almost twice over, she thinks. “I had to.”

“...We needed you to. And so you did.” He squeezes her again, gently. “I needed you. _Jeegaré man-ee._ ”

This one she doesn’t know. She frowns, faintly, considering stirring to ask, but then he smooths his hand over her hair, curling it around his fingers, and she forgets to, losing herself to the sensation.

They lay there together as the full light of the sun finds the moth holes in the curtains, dappling their shared bed. Her hand is no longer so cold, she realises, caught in Claude’s loose, gentle grasp. The life has returned to her feet, her toes. Their legs are tangled and she tastes salt when she presses her mouth to the line of his throat, as she follows its curve with careless, gentle kisses.

He shivers, not from the cold this time.

“Byleth,” he says, and it’s not a warning, not quite.

She smiles against his skin. “Khalid.”

She shifts, untangling herself enough to gain the leverage to push herself higher, to settle against his neck more decidedly and draw a mark there. To start. To claim. He inhales, his grip tightening around her and then his hands find her hips, pulling her flush against him.

He breathes in her ear, hot, whispered. “Byleth. _Azizam_. If you do that, we will never leave this bed.”

She shudders an exhale into the curve of his neck, arching into the press of his hands, the press of him beneath her. “I don’t _want_ -”

Words aren’t enough. She moves with him, moves against him, catching the lobe of his ear between her teeth and he groans this time, softly, wanting, and she relishes the victory even as he turns and hunts for her mouth, stealing her breath with searing kisses.

She moves again, rolling her hips slowly and he meets her, his fingers burning at her hips, firm, guiding. They lose the morning like this, in sparkling, simmering heat, the edges of time unravelling and curling at the edges.

Eventually they lie there, lazy and spent, half out of the covers.

The sun has moved beyond the window, now. The glow of day filters through the curtains, unforgivingly bright, and as unattached as they are for the time being, they will have to move at some point. Eventually, eventually.

She doesn’t want to.

Claude draws his hand between her shoulder blades, a trail of fingertips, up the line of her back. His grip settles at the nape of her neck, warm and weighted.

“ _Byleth,_ ” he murmurs into her hair, a whisper of movement. " _Azizam_.” His thumb rubs circles against her skin, soothing. “Are you ready to see him again?"

She knows what he's asking, who he means.

He says his name anyway, after a pause for breath. “Dimitri.”

The flicker of old memory. Silver and flax and blue, crystal, snow-melt blue, like the sky behind frosted glass.

But that was years ago; lives ago. There’s a new world in her arms, his heart in her hands and her own in her mouth, and she’s alive here, with him. She’s alive.

She- she never has the words.

“Yes,” she tries. She doesn’t hesitate. She knows what she wants, what she needs. “I have you.”

His grips tightens, squeezes. He smiles, or he makes himself smile, accepting that - but no, she’s not done- that’s not enough for what she means-

“Khalid-”

She pulls away enough to prop herself up on her elbows, to look at him, and he looks back. He’s tipped back against her pillows, his hair sleep-mussed and heavy lashes half-lowered but he’s watching her and he’s open, more open than she thinks she’s seen him. His lips part, to form a question. She speaks before he can.

“I want you,” she says, and dips closer. Their breath is warm between them, his exhale against her lips. “Khalid. Only you.”

His fingers are still in her hair. He meets her eye, gaze bright even in the thin faerghus sunlight, and she wants- to kiss him, to hold him. For him to know her, as she wants to know him,

She sinks down into him again, murmuring the words against his mouth; she’ll show him what she means, if she can’t explain it. “I need you. That’s all.”

She feels his heartbeat where they’re pressed together. She feels it racing against her palm, that strong, reckless rhythm, drawing its echo in her own. And then he’s kissing her, and she’s kissing him, her hands in his hair and his arms around her and there’s happiness and home here, she’s home, and this is all she could ever need.

“Okay,” he says quietly, between kisses, cupping her face in his hands. “Okay.”

\--

Eloquence; the words that escape her:

I cannot deny what he was to me. Or the pain I felt. But I am no longer who I was then. And it does not change or impact how I feel about you. I love you. You are all that I need.

**Author's Note:**

> Some quick Farsi translations:  
> jeegaré man-ee - you are my liver / you are all that I need  
> azizam - my dear.


End file.
